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How To Stop Snoozing

The Consequence Of Snoozing

How often do you find yourself snoozing in the morning? How much time do you spend snoozing?

By snoozing for just 15 minutes on every weekday in a year, you have essentially snoozed 3915 minutes away. That works out to be about 65 hours a year (or about 2.5 days)! Imagine gaining back all those lost time! Imagine how much more you could achieve, and what you could have done with an extra 65 hours each year?

Let us take that calculation one step further. Assuming that the average human lives for 75 years, and that they have the habit of snoozing for 50 years, that would work out to 3250 wasted hours in a life time, or about 135 days,or 4.5 months!

Imagine what you could have done with an additional lifespan of 4.5 months!

Quit snoozing and regain control of your own time! Here are some tips to help you out.

Credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Some tips to help curb the habit of snoozing

1. Place your alarm clock away from your bed.

Get an alarm clock that will NOT stop ringing unless certain action is taken. Place the alarm away from your bed. This will force you to get up to turn it off, or it will result in someone else getting up, just to force you to turn it off.

Something extra to note: Use soothing sounds as your alarm. Although we have been trained to use loud and shocking alarms, the truth is no one likes waking up to one. Ensure that you wake up feeling refreshed and positive by using a soothing alarm.

By the time you hit the snooze button on this one, you'd already be wide awake.

2. Know your sleep cycle pattern.

The reason most of us snooze is because our alarm tends to go off while we are in a deep sleep cycle. This results in grogginess. Each sleep cycle is about 90 minutes, and varies on an individual level. Experiment with your sleep cycle to identify your optimal wake up time.

Take note that the 90 minutes sleep cycle does NOT include the time taken for you to fall asleep. Time taken for you to toss and turn before falling asleep is NOT part of your sleep cycle.

You can try the following method to estimate the ideal time for you to wake up. Firstly, find out the time that you get up at, on days when you can sleep in. Using 90 minutes as a guide, reverse calculate to estimate the optimal time you should set your alarm at.

As the time varies for each individual, you may have to try out different timings for several days to identify your own optimal time range.

Do it the fun way. There are 3 game modes you can choose to wake up to.

3. Sleep early

This is a wise old advise that has been passed down for generations. Sleep early.

Once you have identified the optimal time range for you to wake up at, allocated the amount of sleep hours you need, and determine the time that you should sleep at. For a start, you can use 5 sleep cycles as a gauge. That works out to be about 7.5 hours of sleep.

Stick to that same timing from now on. By creating a habit of sleeping and waking up at consistent timings of the day, your body will be able to get used to the routine faster.

If you are not accustomed to sleeping early, start by creating an alternative habit. Make it a point to go to bed 10 to 15 minutes earlier each day, until you are used to going to bed at your ideal sleeping time.

4. Create pain as a result of snoozing.

Create a painful consequence for snoozing. One example is the use of the iPhone app, LetGive which helps you pledge a certain amount to a charity every time you snooze.

Credit: Image courtesy of Paul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

To increase the efficiency of this method, Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology has suggested that you can change the selected charity to one that you hate, or pledge to transfer money to the bank account of someone you hate.